Tony Harber

Home form is proving the key to Castleford Tigers’ success in 2017 with six wins out of six so far at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle and more than 40 points scored in every one of them, including in games with Leeds Rhinos and Wigan Warriors.

The results are in contrast to the Tigers’ home form last year when they lost seven times in front of their own fans and head coach Daryl Powell is pleased with the marked improvement.

He said: “Our home form has been exceptional and over the remainder of the season it is going to be pivotal for how we finish in the regular season.

“Ultimately our own form will be a massive deciding factor.

“We’ve got a lot of the big teams to come here and if we get that right then it will be significant for us.

“Clearly we’re confident at home and we’ve played some outstanding rugby league in the home matches so far.

“We want to play that way wherever we go.

“The last couple of games we’ve played away from home we lost and although they’re tough places to go we didn’t get performances we wanted to.

“But if you look at the games we’ve played away we’ve played a lot of the sides that are high up in the table. We’ve had a lot of games in Lancashire and Hull away some real tough ones.”